Driving Around in Circles Is a Good Thing

There are fewer potential collision points in modern roundabouts than with conventional traffic intersections.

Really, it is. So long as the circle you’re driving in is a modern roundabout.

Unlike traditional roundabouts, rotaries or traffic circles, which can be terrifyingly large, complex and fast (Paris’s Arc de Triomphe sits at the center of one such risky round roadway), modern roundabouts are smaller, simpler and slower.

All of those reasons are part of why, with a rebuild and redesign of a 1.7-mile section of Georgia’s Buford Highway, the city of Suwanee is choosing to install a modern roundabout in its section of the state road and lower the speed limit from 45 to 30 mph.